


Freedom

by AlexiHollis



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8050258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexiHollis/pseuds/AlexiHollis
Summary: What did freedom even mean anymore? Growing up the daughter of a Count in the late seventeenth century, freedom meant the few days a month your father left the manor and Tutor let you ride the old mare your older brothers ignored, favoring the young stallions. orWhy Carmilla is so set on killing her mother





	Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> God knows I should not be writing this, but the plot bunny hoped along and I followed it. Hope someone enjoys this, because I need to be studying for my APUSH test.

Freedom.

What did freedom even mean anymore? Growing up the daughter of a Count in the late seventeenth century, freedom meant the few days a month your father left the manor and Tutor let you ride the old mare your older brothers ignored, favoring the young stallions. Sometimes, it came in the form of pristine cream paper with words penned in calligraphy announcing some celebration that required a ball. After the marriage (though the voice in the back of your thoughts still screams sale), freedom becomes restricted to stolen moments behind curtains or in the servants tunnels with a girl who’s name you can no longer recall. After three centuries of ruining lives, what difference does the first life make? As the ball for you eighteenth birthday nears, marking a second year of a so far unfruitful marriage (sale), freedom becomes anytime the sun shines, anytime you escape the bedroom, anytime your “husband” becomes distracted by one thing or another, anytime he momentarily forgets you exist, forgets about society’s pressure to have a son, or at least some child, by now.

Then came the ball. Then came the uninvited woman who enchanted everyone, yet turned warm blood cold. Then came the strange conversation between dances as you and her sipped bubbly champagne, before you looked away and then back to empty air. Then came the screaming. Then came the mayhem. Then came the corpses lying on the floor, some nearly decapitated and others severed. Then came the running, running, running to the highest tower by mistake, weren’t you trying to run out? Then came the falling, someone pushed you out the window? Then came the silence.

The next thing you can remember is Mother, or the uninvited woman who would later become Mother. You opened your eyes to a world in such detail that you couldn’t ever remember seeing before, and the first thing you see is Mother. Mother helps quench the burning, dry, rawness of your throat and teaches you the way of her new world, gives you a sister named Mattie, a friend, a confidant, who makes clear she finds the new girl irritating at least.

More than that, she gives you a new kind of freedom. A run through the trees as fast as you can kind of freedom. A listen to me, I want what is best for you kind of freedom. A bright new world all for you kind of freedom. And you love it.

Until, it’s not freedom anymore. Until the freedom you have is bloodstained, not for your survival, but because the girls you befriend disappear into thin air. Every family that welcomes you into their home, treats you like a daughter of their own, grieves shortly after you leaves. Every “friend” you make, every girl you lure to Mother’s clutches, never lives past a year of meeting you. Mother soothes your naïve, human morals, calms her glittering girl down, reminds you that flesh means non to stone, but all Mother’s hard work means nothing upon meeting Elle.

Elle. One of the sweetest types of freedom. Freedom defined by curly hair and silky skin, a little mole just above the corner of her mouth. The first freedom that meant returning home, not because you have to, but because home is where you want to be. A freedom that, for the first time, reveals to you that the freedom Mother gave you wasn’t freedom at all. It’s also the first kind of freedom taken so deliberately away, followed closely by Mother’s perverse idea of freedom.

Then there is no more freedom, for what is freedom in a blood-filled coffin? What is freedom when there is no air to breathe? What is freedom when time no longer exists yet there are times you don’t think you exist anymore? Even after your unearthing, freedom doesn’t exist. In fact, you question if it ever did.

You decide that it didn’t. At least, not for you.

Because freedom isn’t a few days riding a horse in an enclosed arena under the careful eye of Tutor. Because freedom isn’t the inability to love men and hiding your love for the servant girl. Because freedom isn’t a loveless marriage where you can’t even fulfill your duty as a wife. Because freedom isn’t a girl with curly hair who died terrified of you. Because freedom isn’t constantly running from your once loving Mother, even if you’re running with a wanna-be-Louis-Lane. Because freedom isn’t trying to stomp your feelings into submission even though every square inch of you wants to embrace them.

But killing your Mother? That sounds like some kind of freedom.


End file.
